Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 – Does it Stand a Chance Against Nexus One Or HTC Legend?
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 features a large 4 inch screen and an 8 megapixel camera. The smartphone was announced in November 2009. It hit the market in March 2010.
Display
The Xperia X10 has a 4 inch display with 480 x 854 pixels. Unlike the Google Nexus One which has a retina-scorching AMOLED display, the Xperia X10 has a plain old TFT display. Still, the display is good. Colors are bright and vivid.
Operating system
At the moment, the X10 runs an old version of Android (1.6 or Donut). An update to the newest version is expected later this year.
Camera
Sony Ericsson smartphones have always had great cameras. The X10 is no different. It has an 8 megapixel snapper that offers excellent picture quality. Smile detection works well, but face recognition is more miss than hit. There is no Xenon flash and due to the limitations of Android 1.6, the LED photo light doesn’t work as a proper flash.
Processor
The Xperia X10 has the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor as the Google Nexus One. But since the Android 1.6 doesn’t support hardware acceleration, it doesn’t feel very snappy.
User Interface and browser
The Xperia X10 offers a whole new user experience, thanks to the Timescape and Mediascape interfaces. Timescape is a killer feature. It is basically an animated pile of 3D tiles. Each tile represents a particular event in your life such as a Facebook update, a tweet, an email or a photo. These tiles are arranged in the order in which they took place. Timescape lets you have your social life all in one place, but it runs a little slowly at times.
Mediascape is X10’s media player. Judging by Android standards, it is a very good application. Mediascape allows you to quickly access music, movies and photos stored on the phone or online. Right now PlayNow is the only online music service supported by Mediascape. But more plugins should arrive soon.
Connectivity
The Xperia X10 supports a range of connectivity options including quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and file transfers. There is a microUSB port for connecting the phone to your PC. There is a also microSD memory card slot but it is not hot swappable, as you have to remove the battery to access the slot.
Other useful features include built-in A-GPS and Google Maps for local search. The smartphone also has a trial version of Wisepilot pre-installed for satellite navigation.
Verdict
The Xperia X10 has got the right hardware, but it runs a slightly outdated operating system. An update to the newest version of Android will give the phone a better chance against Nexus One and HTC Legend.
Xperia X10 specs:
Display: 4 inch TFT display with 480 x 854 pixels
Processor: 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
Camera: 8 megapixel camera with LED photo light
Connectivity: A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, HSDPA
Battery life: 8hours talk time on 3G, 425 hours standby